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Lance845 wrote: The only ACTUAL extra galactic contact from the EU is the Vong.
That's incorrect. Kwa, Chazrach, Nagar, Tofs, Silentium, Abominor are all extra galactic or believed extra galactic. The name of the "InterGalactic Banking Clan" also implies the existence of other Galaxies with which they engage in banking services.
CoALabaer wrote: Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
creeping-deth87 wrote: Question for the people who have watched the show. As someone who's detested nearly everything Disney has done with Star Wars, is Ahsoka worth giving a shot? I really like Rosario Dawson which makes me kinda curious to try this one. I know absolutely nothing about the character, am I gonna be instantly lost without doing the 'homework' first?
From someone who is in a similar position regarding Disney Star Wars: it's definitely worth a shot. You don't need to do much homework, she is Anakin's former apprentice who at some point decided to leave the jedi order to go on a trip to Australia. She has since clashed with Vader and does feel somewhat guilty for leaving her master and potentially having contributed to his fall to the dark side.
You might want to do some reading on who Sabine and Ezra are, but that's not super important, as the show does a good job of explaining most of the dynamics.
Also, she abandoned the Jedi Order when she was framed and convicted of a crime. This revealed to her the corruption, hence even when cleared, she walked away.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I’m also very intrigued regarding Star Wars - Skeleton Crew.
Cursory YouTube search has only thrown up my least favourite things - fan made trailers masquerading as the Real McCoy. So…I know next to nothing about it.
Jude Law leads as a force user, and it seems there’s kiddos involved as the titular crew. And apparently it slots in with Mando and Ahsoka in terms of the plot.
We don’t even have a firm release date/
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/09/07 11:28:02
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I realize there's a certain cynicism these days regarding which character a show is named after and who the show actually focuses on, but I doubt that it will actually marginalize Ahsoka going forward. I expect her role will be to help Hera convince the New Republic to put a fleet over the planet and give Thrawn a warm welcome when he returns, and then participate in the big fight at the end.
Spoiler:
Provided Thrawn isn't conveniently close the end point of the purrgil migration route they're following, he still shouldn't be hard to find. Remember that Obi-Wan found Anakin through his transponder signal in Attack of the Clones, not just pinging into the void in hopes of a response but presumably by automated response so he knew exactly that Anakin was on Tatooine. There's no reason to believe Thrawn doesn't want to be found, so even if he's a bit away, knowing his ship's transponder codes (how hard can it be for a high ranking ex-Imperial to get them?) makes him dead easy to locate unless he spent the last ten years zipping around that galaxy and ending up on the other ass end of it.
Spoiler:
sorry, i must have been unclear. I do not think that Ahsoka is going to be sidelined, though maybe hera is. I expect Ahsoka to use this force-space or whatever it is to travel to the far end of the long jump and catch up with Morgen (and sabine).
what i meant was that whatever is going to happen, its going to be contained to, at most, the gateway system in the Galaxy Far, Far, Away.
that said, the timeline of these D+ shows is a little....vague. Mando S1 and S2 are both fully set in 9ABY. Book of boba fett, Mando S3 and this show are all somewhere in eitehr late 9ABY or early 10ABY, but thiers no hard answers as to when. As far as canon is concerned, less than a year has past between Djinn getting tasked with finding grogu, and the return to Madalore.
it could be these events are happening more or less alongside those in Mando S3, or slightly before or after, we just dont know.
Right, thanks for clarifying. In that case...
Spoiler:
I guess we don't actually know the scope of the show. If this one season is all we ever get, having Thrawn return and defeated during the finale, that might well be it.
That said, I don't think that Thrawn is considered a character to be so easily wasted. Even if the sequence is return, big battle, defeat, he would almost definitely be taken prisoner. And we all know what the New Republic's track record is when it comes to transporting high profile Imperial prisoners.
I think being vague about the timeline is going to work in Lucasfilm's favor. We can say the council at the end of Mando season 3 hasn't heard of Thrawn's defeat, but since the timeline is kind of hazy we can't say if it hasn't happened yet, if Thrawn returned a day earlier and didn't get defeated but didn't have time to check in yet, or anything else really. Might be fun to rewatch once we know how Ahsoka ends, but until then it doesn't actually give anything away. Which is why I wouldn't want to predict the whole thing to wrap up and stay contained to Ahsoka. Star Wars is very character-centric and Thrawn is big news. So is Ahsoka, of course, but so far Thrawn has been played up as someone who isn't defeated by walking up to him and stabbing him with a glowy stick. I think it would be a mistake to bring him back just to add a big name to the kill count when he could instead be the new big bad for a while, and possibly an exceptionally competent one for a change.
And it kind of bodes well that our grey Jedi is very much shown to be a sensible man so far. I'm quite happy with all the characters, actually. We got a pretty cool show out of Rebels and so far Ahsoka follows suit. I'm not yet willing to say Dave Filoni saves Star Wars once again, but I think he might. And I don't think limiting Thrawn to half a season before he's out again is in line with that.
Nehekhara lives! Sort of!
Why is the rum always gone?
Thrawn just isn’t wanting to work with them, seeing in them the flaws of The Empire. Folks promoted due to politics rather than competence. Ego before efficiency.
From the new novels, I just don’t see Thrawn as enough of a True Believer to worry about resorting The Empire as such. Carving out his own kingdom, sure. But not necessarily resurrecting a flawed organisation?
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Thrawn just isn’t wanting to work with them, seeing in them the flaws of The Empire. Folks promoted due to politics rather than competence. Ego before efficiency.
From the new novels, I just don’t see Thrawn as enough of a True Believer to worry about resorting The Empire as such. Carving out his own kingdom, sure. But not necessarily resurrecting a flawed organisation?
Spoiler:
It's not like there's a difference. If Grand Admiral Thrawn returns, many of the good little officers will fall in line in the hope of having someone who can actually bring back the Empire. They're the ones who need to believe. Thrawn's motives are of no concern. Manipulating the Imperial Remnant gives him the military might to achieve whatever he wants. Once he's on top, he can reform his new empire as he sees fit.
At least initially he can't wash his hands of the people because he won't go anywhere without the resources they provide. He's practical and thinks long term. A little disdain for cronyism shouldn't get in the way of that.
Nehekhara lives! Sort of!
Why is the rum always gone?
This series won’t end with the defeat of Thrawn. If I were to wager I’d say his return will be a season capping cliffhanger. We’ve got that whole Heir to the Empire movie coming and all.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: My take on the Droid Legions? A safe foe that Jedi could wreck with impunity in their role as Generals, all part of Palpatine’s plan to corrupt the order. Same as the Clone Army.
Also a safe foe that can be destroyed with impunity in a children's show.
Very much this. Droids exist for the same reason the Foot Clan ninja all became robots.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: My take on the Droid Legions? A safe foe that Jedi could wreck with impunity in their role as Generals, all part of Palpatine’s plan to corrupt the order. Same as the Clone Army.
Also a safe foe that can be destroyed with impunity in a children's show.
Very much this. Droids exist for the same reason the Foot Clan ninja all became robots.
And like, every villain Samurai Jack went against.
AduroT wrote: This series won’t end with the defeat of Thrawn. If I were to wager I’d say his return will be a season capping cliffhanger. We’ve got that whole Heir to the Empire movie coming and all.
Is that actually happening? I thought the big D+ crossover movie was bunk?
Hm. I thought we’d seen a trailer for it, but going and looking I guess that was just Ahsoka trailers, so I may need to retract my prediction. Still wanna think Thrawn’s too big to appear and go in only half a season or less, so if he Is defeated, it’ll just be a setback sort of defeat he can come back from.
Thrawn will return, and because Disney can't think of anything original to do we will find out he's been hosting the 'Real' Emperor Palpatine all this time. All the previous ones we've seen die have been clones/body doubles or special effects
I'm actually wondering if we'll somehow get our first mention of the nascent First Order soon. We've already seen Hux's father but IIRC they didn't name drop the First Order itself yet. I wonder if Thrawn will somehow be part of getting that all set up before something stupid happens to him because Disney feths up the story.
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OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: Thrawn will return, and because Disney can't think of anything original to do we will find out he's been hosting the 'Real' Emperor Palpatine all this time. All the previous ones we've seen die have been clones/body doubles or special effects
Unlikely since Thrawn has been stranded, not hiding away by choice. Getting dragged to Palp would be a little convenient even for Star Wars.
ZergSmasher wrote: I'm actually wondering if we'll somehow get our first mention of the nascent First Order soon. We've already seen Hux's father but IIRC they didn't name drop the First Order itself yet. I wonder if Thrawn will somehow be part of getting that all set up before something stupid happens to him because Disney feths up the story.
In the Aftermath novels, Hux was away getting all that setup. So what would become the First Order will already be at least nascent.
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Maybe. There's a lot of stuff flying about at the moment between the strikes, the Hulu deal, some cable snafu and whatever else is going on. And the string of mediocre-to-poorly received shows.
Disney might be reshuffling the deck, but getting real news is hard at the moment.
OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote: Thrawn will return, and because Disney can't think of anything original to do we will find out he's been hosting the 'Real' Emperor Palpatine all this time. All the previous ones we've seen die have been clones/body doubles or special effects
Unlikely since Thrawn has been stranded, not hiding away by choice. Getting dragged to Palp would be a little convenient even for Star Wars.
Nono, that's where Palps was hiding out, because he foresaw that Thrawn would wind up there. They've been chillin', catching up on their Netflix backlog and building a new, solar-system-sized Death Star.
I would like to throw my crazed fan-theory into the ring here. The endgame of the "Heir to the Empire" plot is to strand the Rebels/Mandoverse cast in the distant galaxy. This will give Filoni et al the option to write stories that are not constrained by the timeline of the sequels, while still allowing the sequels to fart around and do their own thing, not admitting that they were massive duds for Disney.
As evidence, I suggest that Sabine destroying the ring ship and trapping them would be a narratively fulfilling redemption moment for her letting the map go.
If we assume that the exogalaxy was relatively peaceful before Thrawn turned up, perhaps all the military tech would be derived from stuff the various characters bring with them. So we would be seeing TIE fighter, Imperial Star Destroyer and X-wing derivatives, which, combined with Jedi on both sides, gives us all of the trappings for a good Star Wars story.
Like I said, my crackpot fan theory. But if Mando turns up in the next episode or two, I'm probably right.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: We just watched the first episode, and….Sabine is *supposed* to be unlikeable, right?
more rebellious and anti-establishment. Your not supposed to think her actions are morally correct, if thats what your asking. They've just applied a "teenage rebel with a heart of gold" motif to her.
i've not watched really any of the Rebels stuff, so i dont know if that fits her character their (when shes actually a Teenage Rebel) or if this is a new direction for her.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
Coven of XVth 2000pts
The Blades of Ruin 2,000pts Watch Company Rho 1650pts
BobtheInquisitor wrote: We just watched the first episode, and….Sabine is *supposed* to be unlikeable, right?
She has quite the background.
Raised in a noble Mandalorian family, she joined the Imperial Academy. Where she designed a weapon which exploits Beskar, to vaporise anyone wearing Beskar armour.
Realising what she’d done, she sabotaged the project and ran off, eventually joining up with Hera’s crew. In trying to unite the Mandalorians (having come into possession of the Darksaber on Dathomir), her actions kind of trigger the purge. And we saw her project completed and used to kill Mandalorians, before she managed to properly sabotage it.
She then loses Ezra.
Is it any wonder she doesn’t want praise and plaudits, and would much rather be left alone?
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BobtheInquisitor wrote: We just watched the first episode, and….Sabine is *supposed* to be unlikeable, right?
She lost Ezra at the moment of what should have been her greatest triumph, and then her home planet was genocided in retaliation for a rebellion that SHE basicly started.
so she's got a fair bit of emotional baggage
Opinions are not facts please don't confuse the two
So it turns out Hera is incompetent - couldn't even plainly explain the grand conspiracy on Corellia, the theft of the SSD hyperdrives, or the apparent inquisitor.
So it turns out that Ahsoka is still holding a torch for her child murdering ex-teacher.
I dont know about Heras past in this regard, but i do feel Sabine's decision was both basically necessary for the story they wanted to tell, and narratively foreshadowed enough that it didn't feel like a deus ex.
Thats not a defence of the decision she chose to make, mind, it WAS stupid, but people make stupid decisions all the time, especially around relationships, platonic or otherwise. The arc they wanted to tell basically requires that Morgen's plan succeed, so Ahsoka and Sabine couldn't successful stop the. So, Sabine's bad decision is the way to square the circle of having the good guys be competent, but still allowing the evil plan to proceed. Several characters talked about how she might make this exact decision, her reasons to do so, etc.
Its a flaw, yes, but one she can work on. I'm like 90% sure she will be faced with a similar decision this season and choose the "big picture" choice as a way to show character growth.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/09/08 14:16:53
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
Coven of XVth 2000pts
The Blades of Ruin 2,000pts Watch Company Rho 1650pts
BobtheInquisitor wrote: We just watched the first episode, and….Sabine is *supposed* to be unlikeable, right?
She lost Ezra at the moment of what should have been her greatest triumph, and then her home planet was genocided in retaliation for a rebellion that SHE basicly started.
so she's got a fair bit of emotional baggage
None of that comes across in the show. She just feels like a poor attempt at the rebellious cool loner trope. For such a storied character I’m surprised she didn’t read between the lines and expect an attack at her residence. Makes her come across as inexperienced or stupid.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: We just watched the first episode, and….Sabine is *supposed* to be unlikeable, right?
She lost Ezra at the moment of what should have been her greatest triumph, and then her home planet was genocided in retaliation for a rebellion that SHE basicly started.
so she's got a fair bit of emotional baggage
None of that comes across in the show. She just feels like a poor attempt at the rebellious cool loner trope. For such a storied character I’m surprised she didn’t read between the lines and expect an attack at her residence. Makes her come across as inexperienced or stupid.
What confuses me about Sabine is... they did her rebellious teenager phase during Rebels. She was already coming out of that at the beginning of that show. Its now X years later, and now she's the pre/early season teen again, except even more 'edgy' (instead of pushing mid twenties to 30 years old, which is where my vague math pings the character (no idea on the actress)) It didn't seem like emotional baggage from her failed rebellion, just a sulky teenager not wanting to attend social functions like an adult.
I haven't pushed past episode one because the characters seem off. Sabine's a dumb kid, Hera just looks far too young, and Ashoka is... a young, energetic character turned socially clueless pseudo-mom. I remember her as the one character during the Clone Wars series that was actually somewhat socially aware (in explicit contrast to Anakin), pushing the limits of Jedi training. Now she just seems boring Jedi schoolmarm.
This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at 2023/09/08 19:30:57
BobtheInquisitor wrote: We just watched the first episode, and….Sabine is *supposed* to be unlikeable, right?
She lost Ezra at the moment of what should have been her greatest triumph, and then her home planet was genocided in retaliation for a rebellion that SHE basicly started.
so she's got a fair bit of emotional baggage
None of that comes across in the show.
Have you watched the first four seasons, or just leapt straight into season 5?
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